It's the most realistic romance anime you can find out there.
Some of you probably have different reasons why you love the show, but that was what I came up with. You have tons of romance animes out there, such as "A Bridge to the Starry Skies", "The Rose Madder Colored Hills", even "The Future Diary" can be considered a romance in it's own way... the problem with all of them, they seem fairly unrealistic. I doubt anyone in the world had to go through picking one girl out of an entire group of girls that loves him, picking either your fiance or your sister, or finding out your girlfriend is a sociopathic murderer in a challenge to become God.
Now we turn to Say I Love You. It's how a lot of real romances go, the couple date, they kiss, they declare their love for one another. That's pretty much this show in a nutshell. For all we know, this might even be inspired by a true story. Might.
For a story, it was good. It wasn't entirely original, but there were moments in the show that got me wanting to know what happens next. A lot of shows revolve around some mini stories and one big story. This show pretty much only had one main story with the exception of one mini story, which kind of tied in with the main story, so if you're following me, there was only the main story. So as I was saying about it being slightly unoriginal, it's basically a Guy-Meets-Girl plot line. Luckily I liked the show because it was one of the better Guy-Meets-Girl stories.
Artwork, good. I liked the character's designs, especially Mei. She seems pretty average looking, but the artist made something about her make me like her a lot. Other characters were well drawn, but there were some exceptions, like Kai's character art. First of all, no offense to those who like his style, I'm not the biggest fan of mohawks, nor male earrings. It makes him look a lot like a punk rocker. Then there were the "mean girls" of the show. They try to look "fabulous" by putting on tons of makeup and stylish clothes, and in the end, they make them look scary. I mean like "I wanna punch them in the face" scary. Those are the only problems I had with the artwork though. I liked the backdrops, most of the character art, and it just gave me a real image of what Japan looks like.
Sound, voices were good. They weren't extraordinary, but the voice actors did their roles well. Don't have any negative comments about any of them, I just think they sounded pretty average.
Characters, 9. I loved all of the characters. Despite the fact Kai had a mohawk and piercings, I still liked him. None of the characters made me grow a hatred towards them, except for the mean makeup wearing freakshows, so I was satisfied with that. I thought, "Finally, there isn't really a villain in the show". Mains were all cool, I liked their personalities, and Mei and Yamato make a great couple. I dig the whole Tall x Short thing going on between them.
I can say that I really enjoyed the show. A little unsatisfied with the ending of the show, I feel like they could have done so much more with it, like make a really good finale, but the rest of the show made up for it. It had a few good laughs, a well thought out vision of what would come next... overall it was a really good anime. For those of you who like romance animes, this is definitely something you want to watch. It gives you a real taste in what romance is like in the real world. I hope this review helped.
